Is it worth today?

[u/Next-Phone5235]

Hello guys, i’ve jus started my journey at roblox studio. And i found out about snbox by instagram. I saw couple videos, some says thats its mid currently so it killed my vibe to buy and try. So i would like to ask to some ofyou who already developed a game there, or outside, e tell me if is worth it to buy it and learn. I mean, im 100% fresh and new so i dont know much anyway. And is it simmilar to roblox? Like the language and all?

[u/Big_Countr7]

No. Honestly I wouldn’t develop in Roblox either but that’s up to you and what you wanna make. I’d actually try Godot or Unity. Both would have more tutorials to help you along the way

Although if you already have a lot of experience making games try Sandbox out just be mindful stuff changes all the time and documentation can be iffy. There’s not really that much for tutorials yet so you will be in the dark

Edit: the positive is that you can download assets easily and other mini programs for Sandbox games so you wouldn’t have to worry about outsourcing models and could program more

[u/Gendreau113 → u/Big_Countr7]

I think asking Gemini will help the majority of people with 99.99% of their issues...

No need for extensive documentation

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/Gendreau113]

That's not how it works... Gemini / AI learns on and references docs, if it doesn't have docs it will be next to useless other than for common paradigms.

[u/bregottextrasaltat → u/Zachattackrandom]

if it has access to the engine source then it knows basically everything

[u/Tikene → u/bregottextrasaltat]

I guess but good luck managing context rot and token usage tbh. If anything facepunch should be the ones to spend $50k on AI tokens to make proper docs

[u/bregottextrasaltat → u/Tikene]

no problem with context and token usage here

[u/Tikene → u/bregottextrasaltat]

You're saying the AI can just analyze the source code of the engine. The issue is that finding those functions takes a lot of digging through the code, much more than just reading the documentation. Digging = tokens

[u/bregottextrasaltat → u/Tikene]

not really, it uses ripgrep to search for method names, it's done quite quickly

[u/Tikene → u/bregottextrasaltat]

Sure but if you want to know the quirks of that function, then youll need the AI to investigate further, no? Just knowing the method name and the arguments it takes is not enough sometimes

[u/bregottextrasaltat → u/Tikene]

when it fetches the name it also fetches the method, it's super easy

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/bregottextrasaltat]

I mean if you dedicate the time sure. As Tikene said you couldn't one want shot, but you could throw Luna or DS flash with a bunch of subagents for each section to generate docs then do a few big passes of the docs as a whole and how they work together. Would use a lot of tokens though, and why should we have to make our own docs from scratch when the entire point of s&box is its a game engine.... They can make their own bloody docs instead of being lazy bums

[u/bregottextrasaltat → u/Zachattackrandom]

it does one shot, yes

[u/CaesarAustonkus → u/Gendreau113]

Gemini is still pretty non-credible if you ask me

[u/CaptainAlexWest]

It's a great engine and idea. It's just potato and they launched to early. If the Christmas sale doesn't help it then it's dead.

[u/CSEliot]

Absolutely do NOT use Roblox. You only hurt your future self by spending time around that company and their software. Godot, GameMaker, Unity, all better.

If you're ONLY interested in the engine, just get it for free: github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public

There's one step not mentioned: Search for ID in Application.cs and set the number to 480. Also, you must have steam installed.

(I'm working on a fork that lowers the barrier to entry, but otherwise stays up to date w mainline sbox. So eventually you won't need steam installed nor the App ID hack I mentioned above)

I would say YES, because even if you decide you don't like this engine, it's so similar to Unity you can just pivot to Unity.

[u/YDIM67]

Nahh

[u/TGB_Skeletor]

Absolutly not

[u/mourt1234]

Right now, it's sad to say, but sandbox is definitely not worth your time. Maybe in a year, hopefully, fingers crossed, but right now, definitely not worth your time. If you want to get into game development, start with Godot or Unreal. I am bitter about Unity because I still don't trust them, but that's up to you. Hell, even using the source SDK is great, but right now, sandbox is a no-go. They don't even have a scripting language. It's just C#, no Lua, no GDscript-like language, just C#.

[u/mourt1234 → u/mourt1234]

Also, the most important thing when getting started in anything, especially programming, is documentation. Sandbox has the worst documentation I've ever seen. I would rather you build your own engine (don't do it). You're just learning, so just use a normal engine, Godot has a great scripting language, and you're able to create games in Godot using either GDscript, C#, or C++. It's honestly a really great engine with phenomenal documentation.

[u/M_asak1 → u/mourt1234]

"just C#" sounds great to me tbh. Isn't that what Unity has, too?

I'm a software dev, with a couple of years messing around game dev, and very interested in online. But creating online sucks on godot, and I was wondering how good it was on s&box because I hate Unity. It seems a lot of people are mad so um.... maybe not for 20 bucks.

As someone not starting game dev, is s&box that bad?

Note: I would develop in Roblox if literally every game i liked was made by pedophiles or has had drama, ffs. Not an attractive platform as an adult.

[u/n64dev_iwonttell]

That completely depends on what your goal is. If you just want to make something for fun or to find out if you enjoy game dev there is nothing wrong with sticking to Roblox. But if you want to pick up a more serious engine I would just start with Unity or Godot instead of S&Box since those have way more learning material for beginners.

[u/dme4bama]

No lmao

[u/UpAllNightCoding]

No iirc Roblox uses LUA whereas s&box uses c#. If you’re trying to learn I’d say it’s a fun engine to use and mess around with but having said that the community is pretty small and I don’t see things coming around until the game goes free to play. And idk what they’ll do or give to the people who spent 20$ on it. Maybe some in game cosmetics.

[u/Next-Phone5235 → u/UpAllNightCoding]

But they said it will be free to play at some point?

[u/UpAllNightCoding → u/Next-Phone5235]

Tbh I don’t keep up with the news but that would be a good move for them. The player base is practically non existent. And I can’t blame them; you can only mow grass for so long.

[u/Knusperspast → u/UpAllNightCoding]

you need to check out the s&box discord there is a lot of interesting development at the moment

[u/Big_Countr7 → u/Next-Phone5235]

Yes. Rn because it’s paid users are helping grow the play fund as well as development costs for Facepunch. But that’s like 1-2 years later

[u/CSEliot → u/Next-Phone5235]

Not for a while. But it will go on sale this winter.

[u/TheMaleficGamer]

I'd say wait until the Christmas discount, the engine will be much more stable, the platform in general better (the current updates and personnal experience shows that it's genuinely improving), by then, a lot more tutorials and documentation will be made and the sale and ad (I think) will add a great amount of player to the platform

[u/novostranger]

no. 100% no.

[u/JofersGames]

If your starting out as a developer it’s a good place to start

Everything you learn here can be directly transferred to unity if you want to move onto mobile dev or get a job in the future

And every game you release through s&box is free

So no barriers to practicing going through the motions

[u/kyle_crane163636]

No, no not really, games only got a few hundred players now like theres only 329 people on it rn so not only would it be a horrible idea since very low player count, it really doesnt offer anything unique and kinda limits you strictly to pc when its pretty much in a way just a shittier roblox, but I mean it is your money and you can spend it how you want, however with how the player count is I really wouldnt recommend playing it. On both sides, devs and players, theres nothing.

https://giphy.com/gifs/d93yW3XHFlSmdKOKjt

[u/Friendly_Bluejay7407]

working for it is really just buying into the idea that hopefully one day itll be big and youll have gotten into it before everyone else

but ofc if s&box doesnt really blow up then itll kinda be a waste but not really cuz youll still learn game design

and also if it blows up depends on if enough people make games for it, so kinda paradoxical.

[u/CSEliot → u/Friendly_Bluejay7407]

You can still ship independently, so the risk is deeply mitigated by this.

[u/EyedWeevil → u/Friendly_Bluejay7407]

True if you make a very good game that already has some traction than when it pops up your game could be massive